For the purpose of carrying this object into instant execution,
the manager at once repaired to a small dressing-room, adjacent,
where Mrs Crummles was then occupied in exchanging the
habiliments of a melodramatic empress for the ordinary attire of
matrons in the nineteenth century. And with the assistance of this
lady, and the accomplished Mrs Grudden (who had quite a genius
for making out bills, being a great hand at throwing in the notes of
admiration, and knowing from long experience exactly where the
largest capitals ought to go), he seriously applied himself to the
composition of the poster.

‘Heigho!’ sighed Nicholas, as he threw himself back in the
prompter’s chair, after telegraphing the needful directions to
Smike, who had been playing a meagre tailor in the interlude,
with one skirt to his coat, and a little pocket-handkerchief with a
large hole in it, and a woollen nightcap, and a red nose, and other
distinctive marks peculiar to tailors on the stage. ‘Heigho! I wish
all this were over.’